Cathy Pearl Portfolio
Spent seven years at Google — five on Google Assistant, two on Bard/Gemini — after authoring the O'Reilly book "Designing Voice User Interfaces," now Head of UX at Q.ai. Named among Voicebot.ai's top design and product professionals in voice technology in 2020.
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
A published book as the portfolio's central artifact
Rather than individual case studies (much of her Google work is confidential), the O'Reilly book stands as durable, purchasable proof of expertise — a different but equally valid credibility structure for a senior conversation designer.
A career arc that tracks the field's own evolution
Moving from voice-only VUI work into Google Assistant, then Bard/Gemini's chat-based conversational AI, mirrors how conversation design itself broadened from voice interfaces to multimodal LLM chat.
Third-party press as external validation
Interviews in Wired, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal function as independent confirmation of her standing in the field, beyond her own self-description.
What Conversational AI Designers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
If your day-to-day project work is under NDA, a book, talk series, or long-form published framework can serve as your primary portfolio artifact instead.
Frame your career chronologically if it happens to track how the field itself changed — it shows both experience and adaptability.
Collect press mentions and external interviews in one place; third-party coverage carries more weight than self-authored bio claims.
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